Gallup

While a new Gallup Poll finds that voters 65 and older have moved from “a reliably Democratic to a reliably Republican group” over the past two decades, voters in the next-oldest age bracket – 50 to 64 – haven’t followed suit and still show an outright preference for the Democratic Party. In analyzing its own survey results from 2013, 2003 and 1993, Gallup concludes that the shifts in party preferences are attributable in part to attitudinal changes that come into …

Officials at Gallup poll apparently broke out the rose-colored glasses when they reported Thursday that Americans are more optimistic about the availability of good jobs. Of the 1,510 people polled, a majority of people ages 50 to 64 (78 percent), and 65-plus (79 percent), say that now is actually a bad time to find what Gallup said was a quality job. Younger folks were only slightly less pessimistic. Sixty percent of people ages 18 to 29, and 65 percent of …

If you could skip through time and live forever at a certain point in life, what age would it be? Given our traditionally youth-obsessed culture and penchant for nostalgia, you might guess that most Americans would choose to be perpetual teenagers. Well, guess again. According to a new Harris poll, Americans overall consider the ideal age to be 50. Just a decade ago, the average respondents pegged the perfect age as 41. Turn your goals and dreams into Real Possibilities …

Americans continue to be widely divided about labor unions, according to Gallup’s annual Labor Day poll. This year’s approval rating rose slightly above the last two years, from 52 percent to 54 percent. That’s still pretty close to the all-time low of 48 percent in 2009. The all-time high: 75 percent in the mid-1950s. Although from a dyed-in-the-wool union family, I, like America, am split on unions. My grandpa Sam sewed furs and was an officer in the International Fur …

Fifty years since Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, 60 percent of blacks believe that whites have better chances than they do to get jobs for which they are qualified, a new Gallup poll shows. Back then, 74 percent of the blacks polled felt that whites had better chances at jobs. And the perception of unequal opportunity was stronger among blacks under 50 (81 percent) than among blacks 50 and older (73 percent). Now the numbers are …

Is there bias in the U.S. criminal justice system? Unpublished data from a recent Gallup poll point up marked differences in views divided not only by race but also by age. Forty-one percent of 18- to 29-year-olds thought the justice system was biased against blacks. The number dropped to 32 percent for 50- to 64-year-olds and to 26 percent for age 65 and older. (That 15 percentage point difference between the oldest and youngest generations has narrowed by 21 points …